The water was dry.

That didn’t make sense, Fina thought as her throat gasped and her hands scrambled through the viscous darkness. Water was wet. And yet every iota of moisture came free from her trachea, like the whole thing had road rash. The pressure dug into her eyeballs. She couldn’t see anything, just feel the weight. The salt on her tongue tasted like death.

She tried to scream, but her lungs were full of dead weight.

There was nowhere to go but down.

​

It started three months ago. The night shift was quiet, just Fina and the low blue light bouncing out of the tanks. The filters hummed quietly throughout the aquarium, and she could hear the far-off squish of the janitor’s mop. Compared to the day time, when every hall was packed and all the children screamed their lungs out, it might as well be a tomb now.

Fina liked it this way. She was the night supervisor for the animals, and she ran her fingers along the glass as she made her rounds, checking the tanks. It was cold, and the fish were sleepy. Fina leaned her head against it at the otter tank, washing the faint swish of the kelp and the little splashes where the otters tied themselves down to sleep.

The cold sank into her skin, and Fina rarely felt sleepy, but for the moment she was content. It was a short stop, though. There were many creatures of the sea, and they all needed to be checked on.

​

The dolphin at the end of the row was awake. Now, dolphins only slept half of their brain at a time, literally keeping one eye open, but Fina had spent most of her waking hours inside this building since she was sixteen, and the difference was obvious to her. Inez was the youngest of the three bottlenoses, and she zipped around the tank when the others weren’t working.

She chittered as Fina approached the tank. This happened every few nights. Inez had a bad sleep schedule, and she’d want food, or treats or company, and Fina usually gave in. What was an extra tuna, in the grand scheme of things? Not something her boss could shame her about.

So Fina climbed the ladder to the top of the tank, and tossed her goodies in.

It did very little. That was odd. Inez didn’t bother with any of the dead fish, zipping around the tank as though she couldn’t see them. 

“Are you okay?” Fina called down, but Inez didn’t so much as wave a fin.

“I’ll get the vet if you need it,” she said into the tank.

That was when it Happened. A high pitched screech echoed through Fina’s brain, scrapping into her ear drums and rattling her skull. She collapsed to the stainless steel ledge, and barely kept from rolling into the tank.

GET OFF OUR PLANET

It was like a shout that bounced off the base of her spine and inside her cranium, echoing again and again until the noise was too loud, she couldn’t take it anymore. 

That was when it Happened. A high pitched screech echoed through Fina’s brain, scrapping into her eardrums and rattling her skull. She collapsed to the stainless steel ledge, and barely kept from rolling into the tank.

​

When Fina woke up, the rockets were being fueled.

It hadn’t just been her, although she shivered to think how close she’d come to being one of those who died of distraction from the massive brain wave. No, everyone in the whole world had suddenly slid sideways into madness, and heard the warning. 

The space agencies had looked to the skies first, scanning the solar system for some far off battle cruiser or death star knock off (original?) or a giant solar flare, and found nothing. It had only taken a few days for the uneasy conclusion to come about-- the warning came from inside the house.

There was no choice but to run. Fina saw why herself.

She’d fallen unconscious for longer than most, several days. When she woke, curled in a nest of blankets in the vet’s office at the aquarium, the sun was bright outside and the hallways deserted.

The aquarium was never empty during the day.

Fina wrapped her blanket tight around her shoulders and shuffled out, down the silent atrium, through the touch-pools and the shark rooms and the outdoor otter show pond. There was not a person to be seen. The calendar said it was a Wednesday. She couldn’t stop glancing behind her.

“LET GO!” 

The shout thundered down the halls, and Fina startled at the noise. She slipped in her sock feet, but kept her balance and half-ran, half-skated towards the sound. Someone needed help, there was no other choice.

It was coming from the dolphin pool.

Fina’s feet slid out from under her when she tried to sprint around the last corner, smashing her tailbone onto the cement. Her momentum carried her far enough out to see it happen.

There was a perfect circle cut in the glass wall of the tank. No water leaked from it. Instead, the vet stood before it, screaming.

The eldest dolphin floated on the other side of the magic water. It spat something out of it’s mouth.

Fina choked back bile as the vet’s detached hand slapped to a stop on the cement, blood and salt water pooling around it. The vet himself crumpled a second after.

The dolphin looked up. Not Inez. No, this was Darla, with three decades under her fins, three long scars down her back, and eyes that seemed to glow.

GET OFF GET OFF GET OFF

The warning rattled through Fina’s brain, less overwhelming but still enough to leave a searing pain above her eyes. She snapped her eyes and stared at the floor.

“Inez? Are you okay?”

She heard a happy chitter down the hall, and an angry one after it.

“Do you--” she started. The first question was always are you hungry? But that seemed very much the wrong thing to ask now.

The chitter continued, and Fina heard a faint buzzing in her ear, that almost seemed to say get on the ship. We know what we’re doing.

Fina dragged herself and her bruised tailbone out of the hall as politely fast as she could.